About 101 residents of 53 homes in the La Baie area of Saguenay city in northeastern Quebec were forced to flee Saturday night and Sunday morning. On Monday, 79 people were forced to leave their homes after a landslide that night on 8th Avenue. No one was injured. It is unclear if and when the 180 residents will be able to return home, according to city officials. “The only thing we know is that we are definitely looking at weeks, if not months,” said Dominic Arseneau, a spokesman for Saguenay, about 240 miles (240 kilometers) north of Quebec City. Arseneau explained that an analysis carried out in the area this week revealed the possibility of “a very large landslide”. “Right now, it certainly does not matter if – it does matter when and how big it will be,” he said. In a press conference late Saturday, Saguenay Mayor Julie Dufour, who has left, said that everything will be done to support the victims. (Jonathan Lamoth / Radio Canada) A state of emergency is expected to be declared in the area in the coming days. Several families left the area, taking with them as many things as they could. Some went to stay with relatives, while the city redirected those who had nowhere to go to a shelter at the Center des sports Jean-Claude Tremblay. Work is underway to build embankments at the bottom of the hill to prevent further slipping of mud and debris in the event of a new landslide, Arseno said. Steeve Julien, deputy director of the Saguenay Fire Department, said the results of the assessment were so severe that they resembled conditions observed in 1971, when a landslide killed 31 people in the former town of Saint-Jean-Vianney, just 35 miles (35 km) away. far away. The landslide is one of the deadliest natural disasters in Quebec. A major landslide in the former municipality of Saint-Jean-Vianney, less than 40 miles from La Baie, killed 31 people in 1971. (Radio Canada) Saguenay Mayor Julie Dufour said that although the evacuations were a cause for concern, “we have managed to avoid a catastrophe.” “The good news is that everyone is alive,” he told a news conference Sunday.
Long evacuation
Municipal authorities will meet with officials from the provincial Ministry of Public Safety on Monday afternoon to discuss the next steps, as well as what assistance programs residents can access. “We are doing everything we can to help relocate these people, to give them information. It is our number one priority,” Dufour added. “And I ask everyone to work together as soon as possible, to take things in stride.” Yolande Tremblay, 66, tearfully picked up her belongings on Saturday night, another pie in the oven, after firefighters knocked on her door and informed her she had to leave. “It does not seem real,” Tremblay said. “I could not stop telling the firefighters to leave because I would not move.” Yolande Tremblay says she does not know where she and her partner will stay if they eventually cannot return home. (Radio Canada) Trebley said she would stay at her sister’s house until she could find another solution. The Saguenay Public Housing Bureau says it has vacated 30 apartments, but the city and county are still working to relocate the rest who need places to stay. “I’m not tied to my things, it’s just not easy to leave so fast without knowing where I will live next,” Tremblay said. For Marie-Lilianne Anger and her husband, the question of where to live if they can not return home is also “questionable,” she said. In the meantime, the couple will head to their daughter in Ontario. “We have no one else here,” he said. All those affected by the evacuation will be taken care of, local authorities assured. Saguenay invites those affected to call (418) 699-6000 for support.
